


Joyful Consequences

by daBOSSz



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Banter, Domestic, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Humorous Ending, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26286268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daBOSSz/pseuds/daBOSSz
Summary: "Let me be absolutely clear on where I stand," Tifa said groggily without looking at the target of her words. "This is, without any shred of doubt, one hundred percent your fault."(Originally posted on Fanfiction.net in May, 2020)
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 17
Kudos: 91





	Joyful Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy VII and its characters are the properties of Square Enix. This story is not written for profit.
> 
> I've read a few stories recently about some serious challenges that our favorite couple could plausibly face should they decide to add to their family. This little one-shot is aiming to approach that challenge from a more lighthearted angle. (Note that they may seem slightly out of character, but given the context of the story as a whole, I hope it's understandable why.)

The toilet bowl had become Tifa's best friend over the past few days, and today would be no exception. Her usual morning routine would return in due time, but at the moment, that sense of normalcy had to be put on hiatus. There had been no need for an alarm clock to annoy her from her slumber, because her stomach had now taken over that role.

It was a strange concept for her to think about. She'd always preferred to wake up naturally rather than to the irritating noises of a mechanical or electronic time piece, but if waking up naturally meant having to rush out of bed every morning just to eject her most recently consumed sustenance out the same way it entered, she'd go far as to write a letter of apology to her clock and beg for its forgiveness for all the times she'd smashed her hand down on it or threw it across her bedroom.

Tifa couldn't even get a semi-coherent thought through her mind before her esophagus began gurgling again, and her head responded appropriately as it tilted down and forward to flush the tube of all the contents that clearly didn't see the "wrong way" sign posted at the upper end of her stomach. She knew she looked pathetic in her position: hunched over on her knees in front of the toilet and clinging onto the sides of the porcelain bowl for dear life while her entire digestive system refused to give her any semblance of comfort.

She took some relief in the fact that the immediate aftermath of this latest "weight loss" session allowed her a brief respite from her nausea. Internally snarling, she decided she wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste to chew a certain someone out.

"Let me be absolutely clear on where I stand," Tifa said groggily without looking at the target of her words. "This is, without any shred of doubt, one hundred percent your fault."

As predicted, her target's response consisted of nothing more than a slight chuckle.

"Well, if you're going to blame me, then you can find someone else to hold your hair back," came Cloud's sarcastic voice, although he didn't release her long follicles from his firm grasp.

It was miserable to Tifa that she could only groan at him in return while he was free to throw whatever shade he desired her way. Basic biology had already dictated that this entire experience would be completely unfair for her. Oh sure, he was being the wonderful husband she knew all too well: kneeling beside her, rubbing her back, and making sure her waist-length hair didn't get a piece of the action. Yet he didn't have to physically suffer in the agony that befell her these mornings, and he wouldn't have to internally endure all the changes that her body would traverse throughout the remaining eight months.

Luckily for Tifa, Cloud wasn't just a husband. He was also a gentleman, and his priority was always to keep her as comfortable as possible first before teasing her about it. Hence, he didn't respond to her groan. Deep down, she knew that seeing her like this made him distraught, and if he could dictate how her hormones were responding to her changing body, he'd forbid them from ever forcing her to writhe in such agony.

Another violent wave started shooting up from her stomach, and Tifa gave it the same treatment as the previous ones. It wasn't as though she had a choice anyway. When it passed, she felt somewhat decent enough to straighten her back, providing Cloud with the opportunity to pull the handle and flush the toilet temporarily clean.

Her stomach started to somewhat cooperate, and she was definitely not going to allow him to have the last word in their little banter. Tifa was glad that Cloud had grown more relaxed over the years they'd been together, and the amount of sarcasm that he was no longer afraid to throw her way highlighted the much-appreciated growth. To her, it illustrated that he'd finally moved beyond feeling like he was constantly inadequate.

She turned her head to lock her ruby eyes with his Mako ones.

"As I was saying," Tifa tried to muster up as much playfulness in her voice as possible, "you're the one responsible for this. If you were more careful, I wouldn't be having these mornings."

"Sorry, but that won't work," Cloud snickered. "We both know what the truth is, and the truth knows who's guiltier."

"You can say what you want, Strife," she shot back. "It won't change the fact that you knocked me up."

"Did someone forget that she's also a Strife now and has been for a year?" he teased.

"Hah!" she exclaimed. "Don't remind me. I'm only a Strife in name."

"Really? I beg to differ," he disagreed as he moved his hand to her abdominal muscles. "That might have been true over a month ago, but it seems like you're growing a little Strife in you now."

That earned him a soft slap, and Cloud couldn't help but throw his wife a smirk of accomplishment.

"Besides," he continued, "if I recall correctly, I wasn't the desperate one that night."

On the mentioning of the time in question, Tifa instantly felt her cheeks flush with redness, and she hated how she couldn't control the sudden change in color. Now he had all the ammo, and she knew he immediately realized his advantage.

"Yes, I remember your exact words," Cloud remarked casually. "I believe you said to me, 'Don't worry about it, Cloud. If it happens, it happens.' Am I right?"

Oh, how she desperately wanted to punch him for that! Sadly, her repetitive sessions of queasiness meant she was not facing her normal circumstances at this time, and she couldn't call upon her martial arts energy to give him his just desserts when she'd just thrown those desserts up and flushed them down the toilet.

"Hey, you know me!" Tifa retorted. "You've been with me long enough to know that there are times when I can't resist you. Those are the times you need to step in and stop me from being all over you."

"Well, look who's talking!" Cloud chortled. "Tifa Lockhart is the last person in all of Gaia who should have the right to accuse someone else of being irresistible."

The redness in her cheeks darkened when she heard his words, easily reading them for the compliment he didn't bother to hide, and she knew she couldn't return fire this time.

Unfortunately (or thankfully, depending on how one analyzed the situation), her stomach started acting up again, and Tifa quickly got back to grabbing the porcelain bowl. Cloud had his end under control instantly when she felt him clutch her hair, brushing a few of her bangs backward and out of the way in the process. Yet another round of giving into her current gastric needs commenced and finished, and Tifa couldn't help but wonder just how much more she had left for her insides to expel. By her own estimation, which she understood was completely irrational but couldn't stop from concluding anyway, all three meals she'd eaten the day before had now traveled back out of the same tunnel they entered from.

She could sense the empathy in every rub and pat from Cloud's palm on her back. She hated feeling so useless in her hunched position, and she hated how much these mornings were robbing her of her independence, but she couldn't express just how grateful she felt about his presence and desire to comfort her.

"So that's why you didn't fight me that night?" Tifa finally quipped in his direction when her stomach had successfully hit the reset button. "You couldn't resist me either?"

"Do you even need to ask?" Cloud said with a grin. "Have you forgotten which one of us has been crushing on the other longer?"

"Oh, please don't tell me you already had those ideas in your mind when you were peeking over your fence at me," she responded with a cynical eyeroll.

"What if I told you I did?" he asked with no hint of seriousness in his tone. "What are you going to do? Divorce me for creeping on you when I was seven?"

"Hah! So, the truth comes out," she fired back. "That's what you really want, isn't it? You got me pregnant, and now you're just looking for an excuse to be a deadbeat."

That earned her a small laugh from him.

"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Delivery Boy," she continued, flashing her left hand at him and making sure he could see the ring he'd placed on her finger a year ago. "You're stuck with me, and I'll be here haunting you until you return to the Planet."

She expected him to jab back at her but was surprised when he placed his hand across her back and onto her shoulder instead.

"Oh, I know," he replied tenderly. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

The two smiled at each other, fully recognizing another one of their changes in conversational and atmospheric mood. Tifa hoped the moment would last longer, but the reason she was in front of the toilet decided that it was time to send her another reminder.

As usual, her body dictated what she had to do, and as usual, Cloud played his part perfectly. There was no doubt that Cloud wished he could do more to help rid her of this irritating nausea, but sadly, biology firmly prescribed her to suffer through this on her own. She could only sigh when she finally stopped heaving.

"Ugh," Tifa croaked. "When is this going to end?"

"I'm sorry," Cloud responded sympathetically. "I hate seeing you like this."

"I know," she tried to reassure him. "It's your overly protective side feeling awful for not being able to protect me from this."

"Correct as usual," he acknowledged.

It went without saying that neither of them hoped this stage of her pregnancy would become a normal affair. Unfortunately, neither of them could predict when it would end, and it was this unknown factor that Tifa knew concerned Cloud more than witnessing her current torment.

"Teef, do you…um…regret this?" Cloud hesitantly asked her.

"The pregnancy?" Tifa replied, wanting confirmation.

"Yeah," Cloud answered. "I mean, we didn't plan it, and we really weren't careful that night."

Being the more analytical partner, Tifa couldn't help but contemplate what Cloud was asking, and she realized pretty quickly that she would be lying if she said there were no regrets at all. Part of her certainly did regret the consequences of their choices that night; after all, one night of heated passion for multiple days of seemingly endless suffocating nausea was never a fair trade if assessed purely at face value. Plus, knowing what she now knew, she couldn't honestly say she'd act the same way that night again if she was granted the chance for a do-over.

However, Tifa had a much stronger nurturing and maternal side, and that part of her had been wanting this with Cloud for years. As a young girl who was still asking her parents where babies came from, she'd long pictured her future motherly roles with her perfect family, and while her life played out differently from what she naively imagined when she was a child, this pregnancy still symbolized the partial realization of that dream. Sure, she and Cloud were approaching the process "backwards" so to speak, having already been raising Marlene and Denzel as their own before she discovered a few weeks ago that she was pregnant for the first time, but they'd never been a conventional family by any stretch of the imagination anyway.

Plus, what good were regrets for? Hadn't she been the one who finally convinced Cloud not to lose himself to his memories?

"No," she finally gave an answer as she moved one hand from the porcelain to her lower abdomen. "We've created a miracle gift, Cloud. How can I regret that?"

Cloud smiled—a sincere, genuine smile and not a sarcastic one—at her answer, and one look into his Mako eyes told Tifa that the feeling was mutual.

Recognizing that she hadn't felt the urge to hurl again for quite some time now, Tifa was convinced that the day's session was over (at least for the moment). She got off her knees and stood up with Cloud following suit, flushing the toilet clean one more time.

"Why don't you go make breakfast before the kids get up?" she suggested. "I need to brush and shower anyway. As sweet as you are, I know you definitely don't want to kiss me when I smell like vomit."

"Of course," he replied, giving her hands an affectionate squeeze before turning to head out of the bathroom. "Just call me if you need me again."

"Will do," she answered.

Tifa was about to grab her toothbrush when she heard his playfully snarky tone again from the doorway.

"You know, I just realized something," Cloud said, turning back around to look at her with his trademark smirk. "Of all the boys in Nibelheim, I wound up being the one who got Tifa Lockhart pregnant."

"You ass!" Tifa exclaimed, shoving him out while suppressing the urge to giggle. "I'd kick you in the face right now if I could! You are so lucky you look like the hot guy I married!"

She shut the door as he laughed at her choice of words. This was going to be an interesting pregnancy.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you enjoy the story? As always, please feel free to leave me any constructive feedback you may have. I love hearing from you!


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